Live music from Charlie Hustle & the Grifters and Patrick Varine, cultural criticism, general foolishness and whatever other madness starts bouncin' around on our bent-antenna radar.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

'American Horror Story: Freak Show': S04E06: 'Bullseye' [SPOILERS]

I feel like this was basically the look on Ryan Murphy's facewhen he wrote both Ma-Petit-Gets-Killed-OR-DOES-SHE-hehehe scenes...

I got news for you, Ryan Murphy: deliberately staging scenes where it appears that characters get killed and then revealing (over and over again) that HEY NOW LOOK WHAT I DID THERE, THEY'RE STILL ALIVE is not clever writing. If anything, it's the opposite. It's a lazy way of manufacturing drama where, currently, there is little to none.

The second Paul volunteered to be strapped into the Wheel of Death, anyone who didn't know exactly what was about to happen hasn't been watching the same show I've been watching. Although, if scheming-ass Elsa Mars DID gut him with the intention of making it seem accidental, I gotta say: hitting his torso, the one part of his body that's essentially spinning in place? Not a great plan if you fancy yourself an expert knife-tosser, who would never throw at that spot. It's a guaranteed hit.

I was really hoping Jimmy and Desiree would get together. It doesn't appear that's the case now. Jimmy's been set up as a fairly smart kid, it's hard to believe that he believes Esmeralda's sudden change of heart.

Common sentiment on the comment boards is that Stanley's as-yet-unseen-but-apparently-gigantic penis is what's ultimately going to end up in the American Morbidity Museum, and that's hard to argue against. What kind of con man's plan includes murder? At that point, it's not a confidence scam... it's murder for profit. The whole idea behind the concept is to get away with no one the wiser, not someone the deader. And forcibly enlisting someone in your bloody confidence scam... really? If Stan is any kind of con man, he should be able to make enough small-scheme money to at least get by. I need some sort of rationale for his urgency.

I'm doing a lot of complaining, especially for an episode that so many people have praised, but this one just didn't do it for me. Even Dandy, who has a world of murderous potential for character development, is getting a little old — although, "There's nothing left but the dust, and the scorpions inside me" is a great piece of dialogue. Props.

Lots of things have been set up that could pay off, though: Desiree's abandonment of Dell and his recruitment by Stanley... Jimmy and Esmeralda's attempt to run away from the circus, which would be a coy little trope reversal... Ethel maybe following through on her threat to kill Elsa... and whatever batshit insanity Elsa undertakes when she finds out there are no plans in the works for her namesake television show.

Once again, though, the loss of Twisty is very apparent. Dandy's descent into empty, raging homicidal insanity has some appeal and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of potential. But did we really need another scene of him getting all petulant and tantrum-y, this time when the Tattler twins wouldn't "play by the rules"? Not really.

More to come...? Possibly. Re-watching it with the wife later tonight...